


Ars Moriendi

by PunkHazard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two separate memorial services, both held in Hong Kong three days apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ars Moriendi

There are two separate memorial services, both held in Hong Kong three days apart. For the first, Rangers, ex-PPDC staff and their families fly in from all over the world to attend. Stacker Pentecost, Chuck Hansen and the Kaidanovskies get a solemn private ceremony restricted to members of the organization they’d dedicated their lives to for the last ten years.

Mako’s eulogy is short (‘I am grateful and humbled to be standing here today, the Rangers we are honoring mean more to me than words can express,’)— she waits until she’s clear of the podium before accepting the hug Raleigh offers, wiping her eyes on the lapel of his suit before sniffing and taking her place next to Herc and Max, the bulldog with a new collar to match the old one placed in Chuck’s casket. A boombox sits buried under a stack of CDs and white irises in another coffin, two pictures hung from the cover instead of the traditional one. It had been Mako’s suggestion, that they not separate the couple even in death.

Stacker’s is empty but for a set of dogtags stamped with Tamsin’s name, rank and blood type, a plain wood structure in black lacquer, lined with imperial blue satin. It’s set to be symbolically cremated, as the Marshal had stipulated in a will dated to January 2023.

The ceremony takes all day, hundreds of people present to pay their respects. When it ends, Mako helps clear the flowers away.

Three days later, all of Hong Kong seems to turn out for the triplets’ memorial (they get a separate one for just this reason), the entire city awash with the scent of incense. Most of the PPDC staff from the previous event stays for it, Lo Hin Shen and Po Xichi taking the lead rather than Mako and Herc. The entire procedure is conducted in a jumbled mess of Cantonese, Putonghua and English, depending on who’s speaking.

「These three troublemakers,」 Xichi begins to a ripple of affectionate laughter (from their crew up front by the stage, usually in red but this time dressed in somber black and white, all the way to the back of the square, thousands of people packed into the space), 「were our students first and our successors next. But they’ve always been our heroes.」

Somewhere near the middle of the congregation, at the border between seated attendees and the ones who have to stand, Vanessa leans on Hermann’s shoulder and frowns. “Did you understand that?” she asks, and her husband shakes his head. But he’s still sitting straight-backed in his seat, his suit pressed and tailored in stark contrast from his usual wardrobe.

(He had worked on Crimson Typhoon’s OS with Cailtin Lightcap when the Weis were still pitching the idea, sending him chunks of code ranging in quality from barely operational to sheer brilliance.

The perks of lacking a formal education in computer science meant that they weren’t constrained by the ideas ingrained in the field, or limited by the standard operating procedure most programmers stick fast to. He’d called it revolutionary at the time, and Hermann hasn’t changed his opinion since. They’d been as curious about how programmers usually work as he’d been of their own unorthodox style, and he’d spent many hours in LOCCENT tweaking bits of their code with the three of them hovering behind him.)

When Mako’s up, she sticks to Cantonese. Hermann sighs, and resigns himself to looking up a recording of the event for later— it’s being covered by no fewer than fifteen different news networks from all over the Asian Pacific— hopefully with subtitles.

From Vanessa’s left shoulder, standing just behind their row of folding chairs, a man leans forward. He’s tall, handsome and stylish, not a thread out of place on his suit. Vanessa wouldn’t have been surprised to meet him at a photoshoot, but he’s unfamiliar. At his flank, there’s an entire crowd of enormous, tattooed individuals, all of them intimidating either in size or bearing— sometimes both, all of them teary-eyed. “She says,” he tells them, “‘Their family was very large, as they counted every fan and every friend a member. Hong Kong and China will not be the same without them.'"

Hermann’s silent, his hands clenched in white-knuckled fists in his lap. He nods gratefully, but Vanessa’s the one who speaks up, one hand reaching for Hermann’s. “Thank you,” she says, “for your help. Did you know them?”

"You could say that," he answers. "Did you?"

"Not as well as I would have liked, but they were friendly with my husband." Vanessa shakes the hand that he extends, turning stiffly in her seat to meet his eyes. "Do you want to sit?"

"I’m fine," the other man says, smiling warmly when he sees her belly stretching the material of her dress. "You need it more than I do, I think."

"What I need now," Vanessa says cheerfully as she stands, squeezing Hermann’s hand and pecking him on the cheek, "is a bathroom. Feel free to sit until I’m back— um?"

"You can call me Liu."

Hermann looks up abruptly, but says nothing. The name is familiar to him, Liu’s company suddenly totally logical in context.

"I’m Vanessa."

"I’ll do you one better," Liu laughs. "You don’t want to use those portable toilets, do you?"

Vanessa pauses— she’s tall and her heels are sharp but Liu is taller, lean and muscular— also, not pregnant. She doesn’t feel threatened by him, but her gut feeling tells her that he’s a dangerous sort of individual. When she looks at Hermann, he flashes a wary smile, but nods. “We have no reason to doubt this gentleman,” he says. “I could come with you, regardless.”

"You don’t have anything to worry about with us, Mrs. Gottlieb." Liu gives her a mischievous grin when she looks at him in surprise, then he continues, "Your husband took very good care of my brothers during their time with the PPDC. Finding you a clean restroom is the least I could do in return."

"In that case," Vanessa says, taking the hand Liu offers her and stepping through a gap in the seating when he pulls her chair aside, "I’ll take you up on that."

Liu turns to one of his companions, says something quickly in Cantonese and then drops a hand to Hermann’s shoulder. “My friend will translate the ceremony for you until we return. If you have questions, feel free to ask him.”

The crowd, unyielding as it is, actually parts for Liu as he winds his way toward a building about half a block away from where Hermann’s still sitting. A few people duck their heads as he passes, a few others clap him on the shoulder but back off when he gestures that he has no intention of stopping to chat. “Your ‘friend’?” Vanessa asks, arm looped through his. Not out of any sense of camraderie— but she’d waddle otherwise.

"Lee is a ‘little brother’," he says, not even trying to hide the shadiness of that statement. "Just like Cheung, Jin and Hu were."

"You seem to be holding up alright," Vanessa observes as Liu leads the way into a office building’s lobby, her tone just short of accusing. Of the thousands of people who’d turned out for funeral proceedings, he’s the only one who looks unaffected— almost cheerful.

"When you live as we do," Liu answers flippantly, holding the door to the restroom open for her, "you learn not to put your life on hold. They died with no regrets, I plan to do the same."

Vanessa’s silent for a long moment, but she nods and steps past him.

Liu’s waiting when she comes out of bathroom, and he holds the door open while she tosses out the paper towel she’d used on the handle. (She didn’t used to be so careful; preparing to have a child changes everything, as it turns out.) He’s smiling when he asks, “Did you know there’s a crepe stand just down the block? You could bring one back to share with your husband.”

"I could bring one back to scarf down myself," Vanessa counters with a smile. Then she stops, quirking an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn’t it be rude to eat during these proceedings?"

"Probably, but it will go on all day. The brothers wouldn’t mind. They’d snack at my funeral, too."

Vanessa returns to her seat with a half-eaten strawberry and tuna crepe, the whole thing doused in whipped cream (she and Hermann haven’t shared anything she’s ordered in about four months), and Liu with kiwi-nutella filling in two crispy cones. He hands one to Hermann, who promptly loses a good chunk of his snack to Newt, and splits the other one with Lee. Liu and his men disappear about an hour before the end of the ceremony— Vanessa sees him stop by the pile of flowers set up around a photo of the Weis, then speak briefly to Mako before he leaves, the crowd parting ahead of him and closing behind him.

By the time the square begins to empty, she’s left with the paper crepe wrapper crumpled up in her hands, Hermann sitting silently, his palm warm on her knee. She’s been in Hong Kong for two years, Hermann four, the city in turns hospitable and dangerous to the two of them. Their flight to the UK leaves tomorrow, and they’ll return to the comfortable London flat they’d bought together. Before Hermann can catch a cab back to the Shatterdome, she pulls him aside.

A week later, Liu rips open a package, an unfamiliar return address stamped on the front. There’s a framed picture inside— of the triplets, all three of them dressed formally. Jin and Hu are making faces at the camera; Cheung stands at the center, eyebrow quirked. He has one hand held in front of him, thumb and index in a circle while the other three fingers stick straight out.

They never flash their sign for cameras; citizens knowing their history is one thing, but public endorsements for an occasionally criminal organization are another beast entirely. Liu briefly feels the floor drop out from under him, but his finger brushes something stuck to the back and he turns the frame over. 

The post-it note says, _12/24/2023. I heard you couldn’t make it to their birthday, and I saw some of your people do this, too. It reminded me of this picture. I hope you’ll visit London sometime, so I can return the kindness you showed me in Hong Kong. Warm regards, Vanessa G._


End file.
